Senate panel weighs plans to close Guantanamo

“Why are we maintaining this farce of a military commission that really doesn’t work?” Feinstein asked acidly. “It just seems to me that everything down there is so deceiving, and is really a kind of untruth.”

Most of the witnesses at the hearing argued in favor of closing Guantanamo.

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“To this soldier, the fear-based argument to keep Guantanamo open is hard to understand,” retired Army Gen. Paul Eaton said. “Guantanamo is a terrorist-creating institution….Guantanamo in military terms is a combat-power generator for the enemy.”

Under questioning by Cruz, Eaton said there was some risk to releasing Guantanamo prisoners, but that it was manageable, given the benefits of ending the use of the prison as a rallying cry for extremists.

“I spent a career managing risks….We mitigate risk. We buy it down,” he said.

The sole witness to warn against closure was Reagan administration Defense Department official-turned- Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney, who said moving prisoners from Guantanamo to the U.S. could result in attacks on prisons here and in detainees spreading radical Islam to other inmates.

“It makes it a target for terrorism. It’s an opportunity to create a spectacular incident and that’s what these guys are about….Are you feeling lucky? Do you want to take a chance?” Gaffney asked. “These individuals will be engaging in proselytizing their form of Islam, Sharia, inside the prison system.”

Durbin dismissed those concerns, noting that hundreds of terrorists are currently in federal prisons and there have been no attacks on such facilities.

Shortly before the hearing began, a large crowd gathered in a hallway of the Hart Building. Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, said the session was moved from a smaller room in order to accommodate the significant public interest.

All the public seats in the hearing room were filled, many with anti-Guantanamo activists wearing orange jumpsuits and carrying laminated photos of prisoners at the facility.

The biggest legislative challenge to closure may be in the House, where the Republican majority and some Democrats have resisted shutting down the prison — particularly if it means bringing detainees to the United States.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), one of two House members invited to attend the hearing, noted that the House voted twice in recent days to prevent any effort to shut down the prison. “Bringing these detainees back to the United States is not a workable solution,” he said.

Pompeo also insisted the existing facility on a U.S. military base leased from the Cuban government is operated humanely.

“There are no human rights violations occurring at Guantanamo Bay,” he said. That prompted someone in the audience to yell out: “Force feeding!”

For his part, Pompeo denounced the ongoing hunger strike by detainees.

“This is a political stunt orchestrated or encouraged at least in part by counsel for the detainees, and should not be rewarded,” the congressman said.

In a possible effort to appeal to some House Republicans, Democrats and some advocates for closure stressed Wednesday how expensive the Guantanamo prison is to operate. Durbin said the facility cost $448 million in the last fiscal year, or about $2.7 million per inmate. Keeping a prisoner in maximum security in a federal civilian prison costs $78,000 a year, he said.

“This is a massive waste of money,” Feinstein said.

Cruz used part of his opening statement to rail against Obama’s terrorism policies.

“President Obama tells us the war on terror is over, that Al Qaeda has been decimated, and that we can now take a holiday from the long, difficult task of combating radical Islamic extremism,” the Texas freshman said. “I don’t believe the facts justify that rosy assessment.”

Those remarks clearly irked Leahy, who fired back moments later.

“It’s nice to make up quotes and pretend the president said something about taking a holiday from terrorism — but, of course, he never said any such thing,” the Judiciary Committee chairman said.

The other house member who spoke, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), said there was “literally no benefit” to keeping Guantanamo open, since said dangerous prisoners there could be safely housed elsewhere. “All of that can be accomplished by holding them inside the United States,” he said.